The Days After

The Funeral

    I was surrounded by my favorite flowers, lilacs. Perhaps then I should have been happy, but the pale purple flowers were draped over a closed casket and the people in front of me clutched bouquets of them tightly to their hearts. Prayers slipped from their lips and tears stained their cheeks. I should've been as upset as they were, after all, the body in the casket was mine. And who can be happy at their own funeral?

    The day of my funeral should have been the worst day of the two and a half weeks I'd been dead, but it wasn't. It was horrible and I'd rather be living than attending my own funeral but it wasn't the worst.
It couldn't be when everyone I loved and cared for was gathered together in an open hall filled with flowers and there was a skilled musician playing soft melodies on the grand piano at the back. My parents were smiling for the first time since the night of my death as they exchanged stories of my life with relatives and Vanessa was being held by my other close friends, Eve and Peter. I couldn't be sad when my violin was perched up high on the mountain of bouquets that were clumped together on my coffin. I felt almost content amidst the sounds of sniffles and the piano music echoing through the large hall, almost. There was one thing that was missing. Even from where I sat on the raised platform behind my coffin, I could not see Alex.

His parents had come with his little sister, Lucy. She was only seven and though we had been a little like sisters in our own way, I knew she wouldn't quite understand my death and the eternity of it. Yet she still put down a vibrantly colored drawing and said prayers with her older brother Connor, who had come down from college for the week to support Alex. Lucy stood on her tiptoes after, when no one was watching and placed something on top of my coffin. When I leaned forward I saw it was one of those braided friendship bracelets, identical to the one she wore around her wrist. The little girl then whispered, "So we can still be best friends even when you're in heaven."

My stomach dropped. I had to leave then. I practically sprinted to the doors because even though I would not feel the fresh air I needed to be outside. I hated that my death could impact someone so young and small. I didn't want to hurt her too. I didn't mean too.

And perhaps it hurt a little more because I wasn't in heaven and I couldn't tell her that. What I'm in, is the opposite. It feels like hell.

    When I was out, I leaned back into the stone wall, though; I could not feel the jagged rocks that would have otherwise pressed into my back. That was the worst thing about being a ghost or whatever, I could feel all the pain in my head but there were no other feelings to distract from it. I saw Alex then on the other side of the doors with a cigarette between his fingers. He hadn't seen me run outside since I had just run through the doors instead of opening them, which was the only perk of being a ghost. Alex looked liked hell. His eyes were red and rimmed with dark circles and he slouched against the wall so heavily I wondered if the stones would leave bruises along his spine. His entirely black suit made his eyes appear even darker and colder. Yet, I still found him to be the most handsome boy in the world.

That tends to happen when one is in love. You have no control over it, falling in love. One moment everything is normal and then suddenly you see the sun, the moon, and all the constellations sparkling in their eyes. And man, when the one you love smiles or laughs... there is never a sight quite so beautiful.

When Alex exhaled, the smoke ascended into the January air and although I wanted to take the cigarette from his hands and stomp on it, he looked peaceful in that moment. I hadn't spent much time with him since what he said about me in the smoke pit. It hurt too much to know how much I was impacting him, how much I had hurt him. I knew it wasn't my fault, but I couldn't help feeling like it was. If I had walked home a little slower or faster I wouldn't have crossed the street the same time that semi came barreling down. If I had paid more attention or if I had seen the flash of headlights then I wouldn't be dead and no one would be here right now and Alex wouldn't be in pain. But, if it hadn't been me, then it would have been someone else. That made being dead a little easier.